


Finding Treasure

by anachronicity



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:17:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anachronicity/pseuds/anachronicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pirates, mischief, love stories, and 'rails before pails.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Treasure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [childishGambino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/childishGambino/gifts).



  
The first time you meet Vriska Serket happens like this:  
  
You are in your backyard starting to build a fort out of sticks and mud when you hear the hedge rustle. You jump up, stick in hand, and, facing the topiary threat, cry out, "Who's there?"  
  
No response. You advance on the hedge, which shakes again, so you brandish your stick-weapon threateningly at it. Just when you are about to attack, a tousled head pops out from amongst the leaves. It has twigs in its hair. "Why are you wearing cat ears?" it asks.  
  
You sit down in consternation. "I've got cat ears 'cause I'm a cat."  
  
The stranger extracts itself from the hedge and tumbles out, revealing itself as a small and dishevelled figure dressed in a blue t-shirt the size of a circus tent and cut-off jeans with ragged hems that fall just below the knobbly knees which protrude out through the threadbare denim. "You're not a cat, you're a little girl like me. Anyway cats are lame." She stretches out the a in lame like the rubber band in a catapult. "They sleep all day and lick their own butts. You should be a spider! Spiders have eight legs and make webs to catch bugs and they're cool. Not like stupid lame cats."  
  
"I like cats," you insist, frowning. You aren't sure you like this strange girl who talks so fast her words kept tripping over one another and likes spiders which are nasty even though they're totally not scary. "What were you doing in my hedge?"  
  
"It's not your hedge. Or at least it's just as much mine as it is yours, it's next to my house too. I wanted to see what was on this side because I thought it might be something cool like treasure or savages! But I guess it's just you." She stands up and grins ferociously at you. "I'm Vriska. Do you wanna play pirates?"  
  
*  
  
You play pirates.  
  
You also play cowboys, and explorers, and Peter Pan on the rare occasions Vriska manages to use it to talk her little brother Tavros into playing with you, but mostly you play pirates.  
  
This is how you first meet Kanaya Maryam.  
  
*  
  
The game - in its later, refined versions - goes like this: you and Vriska are rival pirates. You are both looking for the same treasure (usually a hoard of beads or glitter hidden amongst the roots of the big oak tree at the end of Vriska's yard) and you get there first, but Vriska has kidnapped someone from your crew and so you have to stage a daring rescue before you can get to the treasure, otherwise it doesn't count.  
  
Vriska always gets the treasure.  
  
Usually the kidnap victim is one of your stuffed animals, or your favourite doll who is customised with whiskers and little cloth ears hidden in her tangled hair. Occasionally it's a chair from your kitchen and then you have to be even quicker so you can get it back before your parents notice.  
  
Then there's the time you run into Vriska's hideout (the little space under the porch, muddy and musty, where she always keeps her hostages) and find a girl sitting on the ground, her hands tied with a jumprope and a scarf stuffed into her mouth. She looks up at you with big, damp eyes, and you cover your mouth with your hands. "I'm so sorry!" you squeak as you hurry to untie her.  
  
You pull the scarf out of her mouth; she sniffs and says, "I'm not crying. I'm just angry because Vriska lied. She said it wasn't going to be very long but she lied and I don't like the dark."  
  
You give her your hand to pull her out from under the porch and you keep apologizing until you get to the oak tree where Vriska is waiting. "You're so slow, Nep!" she yells. "I got all the treasure!" You walk right up to her and stare her in the face.  
  
"I don't care!" you say. "You can't just tie people up, Vriska, you upset them, and it's mean, and I don't want to be best friends with someone who's mean."  
  
She goes stiff and her eyes narrow. "Whatever."  
  
"Don't say whatever! Say you're sorry, or I can't be friends with you any more!" You don't know where this is coming from. You've never challenged Vriska, because she's a whole ten months older than you, and much louder and cooler, and she always wins anyway. But the kidnapped girl is here and even though she's stopped crying, she's standing a few steps away staring awkwardly, and you don't want her to be upset.  
  
"Kanaya said it was okay," Vriska sneered. "Didn't you, Kanaya?"  
  
The girl - you guess her name is Kanaya - starts. "I did, but you lied to me! You said it would only be a minute, but it was ages."  
  
Vriska is silenced.  
  
"Say sorry," you say again, glowering at her.  
  
She scuffs her bare foot through the dirt. "Fine. Sorry, I guess."  
  
"It's okay," says Kanaya.  
  
*  
  
Kanaya is fine with being the kidnap victim, as long as she's outside instead of in the dark. You and Vriska take turns tying her to the tree in your yard (the oak tree is too old and fat to get a rope around) until one day your papa comes home early and catches you. He gives all three of you a long lecture about how freedom from captivity was an important right and he didn't expect to see it being violated in his own backyard. Kanaya tries to protest that she volunteered to be tied up, but he ignores her to say how disappointed he is in all of you.  
  
You don't play pirates much after that.  
  
The end of summer comes not long after, and the families in the neighbourhood start to move away. Kanaya departs first, with a few dignified tears and hugs for both you and Vriska and promises to come back next year.  
  
Vriska is much louder and clings longer and when she finally leaves you think of her frayed cuffs and bravado and tangled hair, and you realise she never promised to come back.  
  
*  
  
She does, though: they both come back the next summer, and the next, and the next. The summers bleed into each other, erasing the dull, cold times in between, becoming one, long, happy stretch of gold.  
  
*  
  
It's in that third summer, the last one before everything changes, and you're playing hide-and-seek through a field of wheat. You are crouched down, like a prowling lion, straining your ears to hear anyone passing through the tall stems; all you hear is the wind. The light filters down to you diffuse and green-gold.  
  
Suddenly, there is a rushing and a crunching, and Kanaya comes hurtling through the canopy of wheat. She crashes onto you, out of breath and laughing. You laugh too, and try to wriggle out from underneath her, but she's heavy so you just flip over onto your back, and suddenly her face is very close. There is a moment where you and she both realise this. Then her mouth is touching yours and it's a bit warm and strange but mostly nice and you think _Oh_.  
  
She moves away all at once and rolls off you and lies very still in the crushed wheat stems next to you. You are thinking, _Oh_ , and _Kanaya kissed me_ , and _I kissed Kanaya_ , and you wonder what she is thinking. When you roll over to look at her, she doesn't look how you feel: she is biting her lip. She looks worried.  
  
Then Vriska comes leaping through the wheat and lands between you in a heap, and cries "Caught you!" and you never quite dare to mention it again.  
  
*  
  
That winter is lonely. Your brother has started high school and doesn't have time to play with you any more, preferring to stay shut in his room talking online to his best friend Sollux about computers and other boring things. You've met Sollux once or twice, when he's come over to visit, but you don't like him much: he looks at you like you're stupid. You like his girlfriend Aradia better because she smiles and talks to you, but you can't hang out with her because she is older and smarter and infinitely cooler than you.  
  
You write letters to Vriska and Kanaya that you can't send because you don't know their addresses, and you find a pack of cards and teach yourself to play solitaire, which is probably the saddest, loneliest pastime possible. Lacking anything better to do, you start to read books.  
  
You read everything you can find, mostly your brother's adventure stories or your papa's tattered old sci-fi paperbacks, but the ones you like best are the ones with love stories in them. You like the inevitability of them, and you can always tell from the very first meeting who is going to end up together and who isn't. But you wonder why it's always a boy and a girl who kiss or end up together. You think boys, like spiders, are a bit nasty even though they're totally not scary. You would rather kiss Kanaya again.  
  
You think about Kanaya a lot.  
  
*  
  
When Kanaya and Vriska arrive for the summer, this translates into wanting to hang out with Kanaya a lot. You elect to play her quiet inside games, or sit and talk about books (she likes books with vampires and werewolves, and you always have fun dissecting the romantic subplots), even when you'd rather be outside climbing trees and jumping ditches with Vriska. You don't really think about how Vriska might feel about this until one day when you invite her to the tea party you and Kanaya are having that afternoon, and her face contorts, crumpling into something unpleasant and betrayed. The corners of her eyes are beading with - tears? You have never seen Vriska cry before. You reach out to her, but she hits your hand away, turns and flees.  
  
Without thinking, you tear after her: up the street to her house, through the swinging back door, up the stairs and to her bedroom. She slams the door just as you reach it, so you skid to a halt and hesitate before you tap quietly on the door. "Vriska? Vriska, what's wrong?"  
  
"Go away," says a voice, muffled.  
  
You go in.  
  
You've only been in Vriska's room a few times before. It's usually dark and a little musty, and tidy as only the room of someone who prefers being outside can be. It's not so tidy at the moment, though: the blankets are all pulled off the bed, forming a misshapen pile of mournful cloth atop the curled-up shape of Vriska on the floor. You go over and worm your way into the pile, burrowing your head into Vriska's side.  
  
"Go away," she says again, kicking at you half-heartedly.  
  
"Not 'til you tell me what's wrong," you tell her in a sing-song.  
  
"What if I don't want to tell you what's wrong?"  
  
"But I'm your best friend in the whole wide world and that's what best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-worlds do."  
  
She extracts herself and sits up and frowns at you. "Are you really?"  
  
You stare back at her. "Of course I am!"  
  
"Are you sure you don't like Kanaya better?"  
  
 _Oh_ , you think, and "Oh," you say. She seems to take this as confirmation, and she nods, staring down at her hands which are strangling the ends of the blanket in her lap.  
  
"Well, you can leave, then. You don't need me any more. Nobody ever does for long."  
  
"Vriska, no!" Your throat is tight and burning from holding back tears, but you don't care. "It's not like that at all. I mean, I still need you. You're still my best friend in the whole wide world. I like Kanaya a lot but -" Vriska is staring at you, face halfway between hope and fury. " - but not the same way as I like you!" There's a pause while you struggle for the right words. "I mean, I _like_ like her."  
  
Her eyes go very round, first. Then a mischievous grin takes over her entire face. "You have a crush on her! Nepeta and Kanaya, sitting in a tree..." She dissolves into ridiculous fishy-kissy faces and laughter, collapsing sideways into your lap. You pet her snarled hair fondly.  
  
"But I'm still your best friend in the whole wide world, right?" you ask.  
  
"Forever and ever," she tells you solemnly, "as long as you remember that crushes never ever come before friends."  
  
"Even when the crushes are your friends too?"  
  
"Even then."  
  
"Okay," you say, and you let her drag you down into the pile to hug you mercilessly.  
  
*

**Author's Note:**

> Some of the things in this story really happened. Others didn't. I'll leave it to your imagination. 
> 
> The inimitable childishGambino asked (among other things which I wish I could have written as well because they were _excellent_ ships) for Vriska <>Nepeta with a side of Kanaya<3Nepeta. I took that and ran with it - ran, in fact, right out the door, down the street, and into someone else's backyard, via a couple of thorny hedges. I hope it's still something close to what you were hoping for! 
> 
> All my thanks to tumblr user runawayjoincircus, without whose beta reading services this would have been a considerably worse pile of words.


End file.
